Is more debt worth Keynesian policy?

Stop with the inane dodge. I've said your comment was ignorant. I've asked you since to defend it with scholarly source. Can you?

 

...I was asking a serious question. I had two premises in my initial comment. I need to know if you disagree with one, the other, or both. A clarification is not a dodge. I need you to clarify for me what exactly you disagree with that I must defend.

 

That you don't know what to defend amuses me, just a little. Defend it with scholarly research. I'm happy for you to pretend its multifaceted and for you to offer a multi-stage scholarly defence. Indeed, it will amuse

 

If you won't even clarify which of my premises you find incorrect, then I will not waste time discussing anything with you. There is absolutely no use discussing anything if you wont even clarify your position.

 

Read this and tell me where they have it wrong (Hey Reiver, note - a public domain, scholarly work)..

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/shleifer/files/politics_market_socialism.pdf

If the greedy can't run their own company, they will get into government and run the people company - to their own ends.... None of the checks and balances that comes from competition / capitalism.

 

Your refusal to defend your original comment is revealing in itself. Thankyou

 

1994 article? Crikey, isn't blind googling grand! Market socialism. An early reference to market socialism would refer to the notion of the socialist planner trying to mimic the Walrasian auctioneer in a neoclassical approach into perfect competition. That stuff has been old hat for some time, given the nature of the socialist calculation debate and Hayekian information problems.

You only show that you don't understand market socialism. Post-Hayekian market socialism, for example, will refer to a restriction in government discretion (with it sidelined to standard market failure issues). There are then two integral elements. First, the protection of property rights (through worker ownership). Second, the creation of firm through- for example- the removal of inequality of opportunity.

 

America is awash in a debt it cannot possibly repay.
The US government is not able to generate enough in taxes to run the government and service the interest on the debt. They have no way to pay the interest, pay down the principal on the debt, and fund on going government processes.
The constant wars are being fought on more borrowed money.
When you are borrowing just to pay interest, and fund current operations you are in essence bankrupt.

Our government can't even print more money. They have to borrow it from the Federal Reserve system.
The more money the Fed prints out of thin air the less the money in circulation is worth.
This process steals the money that bond holders lent to them, and destroys the value of the savings of their citizens.

 

Typical Reiver, making up his own definitions.

But lets explore your definition. To quote Walter Williams "and then what?"

The employees own the company. Do they make decisions on product, product prices, and salaries by show of hands?

Do the employees take turns managing the company to eliminate that inequality of opportunity? Does profitability take second place to job satisfaction?

Does the government, contrary to the Harvard paper, expect nothing in return for providing this socialst paradise?

How does government keep the strong from retaking ownership of the firm?

You could try being persuasive, providing details and maybe even some examples. But, I'll put my money on your responsding with your typical, content free, arrogance.

 

No, simply replying 'with knowledge'. You've constucted argument based on knowledge deficiency, with your blind googling reflecting that deficiency.

Firm organisation decisions aren't up to me (obviously). We do know that the empirical evidence shows that worker ownership is associated with higher productivity levels. There are numerous explanations for that, ranging from voice effects (naturally generated by more democratic procedures) to superior division of labour (e.g. Hierarchy to 'divide & conquer' is no longer required)

 

Of course, you know know more than professors from Harvard and University of Chicago.

If employee owned companies were more productive, they would outcompete other forms of the firm, and thrive in capitalism.

They don't. Your explanation?

 

I certainly know more than a Professor writing in 1994. Catch up!

Another basic error. There is a difference between profitability and productivity. We've seen somethink akin with unionisation, with voice effects increasing the latter but the reduction in economic rents reducing profit. It of course gets more complicated when we factor in market power

 

You have yet to demonstrate that.

Error? ROTFL

Voice effects improve profits, and are used by many companies (Jack Walsh, GE, and "work out" is a good example).

Economic rents are by definition, non-productive costs. Eliminating those improves profits.

If after all that, the company isn't profitable, who makes up the difference?

 

Then you're not very observant. Its not surprising really, given the vibrancy in socialist political economy, that things have marched on considerably since the article from the 90s you've randomly provided. The socialist calculation debate, mind you, isn't anything recent. The solutions (and how socialists were even able to maintain consistency with the Austrian school), however, are. Your position is based on an ignorance of that political economy. And, let's not forget, your original comment over Keynesianism was similarly based on a mere knowledge hole.

Obviously. To have a point you'd have to show that productivity and profitability go hand in hand. We know that isn't the case. Hierarchy (independent of division of labour criteria), vital for reproducing profit, will necessarily harm productivity.

We'll add economic rents to the concepts that you don't understand. A socialist will appreciate how a key source of economic rent is underpayment (and/or underemployment); a source of inefficient profit

 

This isn't about me, it is about your self appointed expertise in economics.

Demonstrate some economic expertise.

Hint, stringing together buzz words doesn't constitute understanding. Neither does attacking anyone that disagrees with your opinion.

Market Socialism worries about over paying employees, and expects to be supplimented , so they don't have to worry about profits.

This is a good thing?

What a grasp of all things economic.....

 

Its actually about common sense. Given the vibrancy in socialist political economy, it would be cretinous to think a 1994 article would provide an integral critique

You're not making sense. That doesn't surprise me. You should be attempting to suggest there will be alternative sources of inefficiency, such as overmanning. You're going to struggle to support that premise though, given the higher productivity rates and the increased importance of market forces (given market power and the economic rents that necessarily generates will be less of a problem)

 

Absolutely. It's a tried and proven way to get the economy rolling, create growth and jobs and a tax base that can lower deficits and debt.

 

Of course you're right, and I looked past the word "debt" and thought "deficits".

So, my answer changes to higher short term deficits for stimulus will lower debt and deficits in the fiture, if done right.

 

Just having more jobs from the increased demand, and thus more profits, will lower the deficits in the future. In many cases, there may be no need to increase taxes once the economy is sufficiently recovered, because of less reliance on the government for aid and more jobs equating to more revenues. People who earn money are taxed. But the money they earn is spent, which means the companies making a larger profit are creating more revenues.

 

Basically they're attacking a strawman. They've mischaracterized what market socialism is and then attacked their own creation.

"Free" markets would still exist and so would government, the only changes would be a radical evolution in firm ownership and the abolition of capital ownership. Yes, extremely radical but has nothing to do with government checks and balances.


Please don't take this as an endorsement, I'm just trying to clarify some things.

 

I suspect the professors know thier stuff, but lets just say you are right.

Do you agree that the government is not pure in it's motives? That elected politicians will do what is needed to get elected. that regulators are influenced by the industries they regulate?

Abolition of capital ownership, or a shift in ownership?

If the government has the power to re-assign ownership from a capitalist (or the stock holders) to the employees, won't the government have enough power to threaten to do that again, if the company doesn't bend to the will of the government?

 

Get a more recent article from them!

Which is a bigger issue in capitalism. Market concentration, for example, magnifies the problems associated with influence costs.

Its not about re-assigning ownership. Its about protecting property rights

 

This from the guy that held up as expert a 1977 article on the stagflation of the 70's- how rich.

Why? You already said Market Socialism doesn't concern itself with profits - the companies woin't last long enough to over man.

I wasn't the one that made the statement, I just converted it from Reiverese

To English.

 

You keep shooting yourself in the foot! I deliberately referred to an old article that tested Keynesian analysis into stagflation. I did that as you made the ridiculous claim that Keynesianism couldn't understand the phenomenon. With socialist political economy, you've only illustrated how vibrant the analysis has been (making 1994 comment look terribly simplistic). I should really thank you for that.

Where did I say that? Given that would be a nonsense comment, I won't have said it.

You haven't actually made one valid comment.

 

Also keep in mind that things change often, it's a tad dated and it's not really a topic I stay current on so I have no idea how much it's evolved over the last decade or so.

It's just a different organization with a different set of incentives. Whether they're motives are "pure" or not is completely subjective.

Of course they are, that's a given is it not?

Reiver will (and has) told you that it's protecting property rights. There is some truth to that, but that's another topic for another thread.

Perhaps, it's not really my thing, I'd have a hard time seeing things evolve naturally to it so I suspect it wouldn't come about without violence.